Big changes coming to Android’s Google Play Store this month

The Google Play Store has been the default place to officially download Android apps for years, but that’s about to change. Later this month, Google will adopt changes that should make it much easier to install apps without relying solely on the company’s market in the United States. This major change comes after Google and Epic Games unexpectedly abandoned a proposed settlement in what has been a years-long legal battle. With the settlement scrapped, Google will now be forced to open the figurative doors of the Play Store to third-party app stores in the United States.

The ongoing legal feud between Google and Epic is something to watch, especially for Android and gaming fans. However, for a while, it looked like the companies wouldn’t come to a solid conclusion. Something started to change in December 2025, when Fortnite returned to the largest Android app store. For additional context, a judge ordered Google to open Android to third-party app stores in October 2024. However, the company continued to fight this injunction, pushing for a settlement – ​​which Epic had even agreed to – that would allow it to avoid offering third-party app stores directly in the Play Store, instead allowing users to download them.

However, even that fight is now officially over. As a Google spokesperson confirmed to The Verge, the company is withdrawing its motion to modify the injunction, meaning Google will now have to comply with the judge’s initial order starting in 2024. As a result, it appears that third-party app stores will soon be available for download on the Play Store in the United States, and court documents indicate that Google will begin implementing the associated changes on July 22, 2026, effectively ending the company’s monopoly on Android apps.

This change is undoubtedly one that US-based Android users will greatly appreciate, especially in light of how Google has changed how sideloading works on Android devices. For years, Android users could download and install apps without going through the Google Play Store. Some app stores, like F-Droid, have even bridged this gap, allowing users to easily access many open source alternatives to popular Android apps. However, Google had big plans to make Android more secure, and that included major new rules for sideloading apps. Ultimately, these rules would have made it much harder to access all the apps you wanted if they weren’t on the Play Store.

Now, however, with this new system in place, the need to download apps so far outside of the Play Store could be a thing of the past. That’s at least a possibility, given Google’s openness to allowing third-party stores.

In addition to simply allowing third-party app stores to appear on the Play Store, Google has also already told developers that it will automatically make their app and game listings available to third-party app stores in the United States starting July 22, unless the developer opts out. Third-party stores can also control whether they offer apps from the Play catalog, and to do so they will need to register and pay a $5,000 annual fee, as well as meet other requirements, such as indicating when an app is from the Play catalog.

There are of course still several unanswered questions regarding this change. Google will need to iron out details like how Play Catalog apps offered in other stores could use the company’s Play Protect feature, as well as how best to assess a third-party store’s security before allowing it into the Play Store. Given the issues we’ve had in the past with malware in Android apps, it will be essential to take a robust and secure approach to ensure the system is not abused by bad actors. It’s also unclear how this might affect other parts of the Play Store, like Google Play Pass, which lets users pay a monthly subscription fee to access full versions of apps and games.

Google has opened up third-party app store integration, although questions remain about how accessible the process will be for store developers. Hopefully we’ll see more answers to these questions, and others, in the coming weeks. For now, Android users in the US can at least expect to see some big changes coming to the Play Store – changes that will hopefully create a more secure but more open way to access even more useful Android apps.